October 15, 2011

… Turning to the data, let’s first look at the “unluckiest” batters of 2011—those who are most likely to see the sharpest batting average improvements in 2012 (dBABIP greater than .050):

Last Name

First Name

Team

BABIP

xBABIP

dBABIP

Chone

Figgins

Mariners

0.215

0.314

0.100

Vernon

Wells

Angels

0.214

0.298

0.084

Rafael

Furcal

MULTIPLE

0.240

0.320

0.080

…

Alex

Rios

White Sox

0.237

0.299

0.062

…

Adam

Dunn

White Sox

0.240

0.299

0.059

As you might expect, a lot of the guys with some of the lowest batting averages in baseball populate this list. Those players, though mostly terrible, were not nearly as terrible as their batting lines from last year indicate. For example, Alex Rios was likely more a .260-.270 than a .227 hitter, and Adam Dunn should have hit closer to .200 than .159. …

Here are the xBABIP data for the White Sox players from the accompanying spreadsheet (batters with positive dBABIPs are “unlucky” while batters with negative dBABIPs are “lucky”):